Thing 5 - Flickr v Picasa

So I've use Flickr a tiny bit, because when one of our branches was being expanded the manager put photos of the progress on Flickr. It was okay. My way of sharing photos is Facebook. That is the main reason I use it. I like it for keeping up with friends, events, bdays, etc. too, but mostly its for sharing photos.

So I decided not to get a Flickr account, just to do Option A. I went to Flickr and looked around. The 7 days had nice, beautiful photos, but really I need personal significance to really enjoy a picture. I use Google Images a lot when I need a photo, usually of covers of books for the book lists I make. But now that I know I have another option for looking up photos in Flickr, I might use that too. I really like the way the Clemens library used Flickr for its displays. My library's public relations person reminded us that each branch has their own Flickr account if they choose to use it. However, since my branch has a blog, we've been doing pics there. This weekend I went to Arizona for a wedding (I'll blog about that next), so I looked up 'mesa temple' and got like 1000 results. Lots of them were by one guy MatthewPHX. He has a lot of editing tools and does cool things to the pics. But my fav was one by midiman. I liked it because it kinda looked like it did the day I went, I just had more sun.

The interesting thing is, that I just started using another photo sharing site. My dad, a computer guy, just gave me a new CPU and I lost my photo editing program, but luckily not the photos. So he told me to try Picasa, because he heard others say it was good. I finally got around to trying it two nights ago, because I wanted to edit some of the photos I took in Arizona. First I got the WebAlbums, which isn't what I wanted. I was talking out loud and my roommate came in and told me she uses Picasa all the time and that's not what it looks like, so she brought it up on her laptop. I realized I'd downloaded the WebAlbums and not just plain old Picasa (not old apparently, version 3). So I had the free program scan my computer for pictures and it uploaded all of them, and I'm talking thousands, in about 5 minutes. Then I started editing and oh my gosh you can do the coolest things!! I only had cropping, red eye and lightening on my other program, but there's like 50 options of things to do to these photos. The lighting wasn't good on the reception pictures becase the only lights on were white twinkle lights, but Picasa made the pictures wonderful, bright and clear. I'm in love! Also, I've been really worried about losing my digital photos, in case of a fire or my computer crashing. I have lots on Facebook, but I don't put them all there, so now I have them on Picasa and can access them from any computer. I feel safer and can't wait to hook up my Christmas present (color printer/scanner/fax/copier) so I can scan the old paper photos in those albums no one looks at (I love those Common Craft Show videos) and have them safe too. When we kept having those hurricanes in 2004, I kept all my albums in a laundry basket so I could just take them with me when a hurricane was on its way and I went to my parents bunker-like house. Now I needn't lug them around (well I won't when I get around to scanning them, hopefully I'll have it done before next hurricane season).